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NZAA Presidents Report2003 to 2004It It is my pleasure to present to you my Annual President’s
Report. |
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The Allan William Jones Memorial Scholarship function was held on Sept 14th last year at the Rose Centre in Belmont on Auckland’s North Shore. A new venue for this event – smaller and more intimate but well suited to the programme we typically present. |
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The 56th Coupe Mondiale
World Accordion Championships were held in Slovakia and Hungary, with
New Zealand represented by 3 NZAA members competing in the International
Piano Accordion Competition – Mylie and Hilary Thwaites and Shanxi
Upsdell. In addition to the competitions and concerts, the CIA held its
110th General Assembly of delegates. During the Assembly, several nominations
were accepted for the CIA Merit Award honouring outstanding contributions
to the International Accordion Movement as well as for the newly established
award “Honoured Friend of the Accordion”. We were of course delighted and extremely proud that NZAA member Christine Adams was voted to receive the CIA Merit Award for her development of the Accordions Worldwide International News and the NZAA Secretary Marie Jones received the Honoured Friend of the Accordion award in recognition of the many years of work co-ordinating NZAA activities. |
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Regrettably the accordion world lost a great friend when
Tom
Collins passed away peacefully on 7th February this year. Tom was
a wonderful person who did so much for our instrument. He played all over
the world, wrote music and gave people tremendous pleasure from all his
activities. Whenever he visited NZ (which was at least 26 times) he made
himself available to help by attending and always participating in camps,
lectures, rehearsals and performances. He was loved wherever he went and
we will all miss him very much. |
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The accordion classes of the North Shore Performing Arts
Competition Society on Sunday 9th May were totally dominated by NZAA members
who won all of the major placings. |
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The 2004 NZ and South Pacific accordion Competitions and
Festival was once again a great success. The Friday night mix’n mingle
function was well attended and provided an excellent forum in which to
welcome our featured Guest Artist, Pavel Mangassaryan, as well as our
overseas entrants from China and Australia, together with the NZ entrants
in our premiere solo class. The draw for playing order for the 6 entrants
also took place during the evening. Once again our premiere solo class
ran in accordance with the rules of the Coupe Mondiale International Piano
Accordion Competition. These rules were introduced to our Championship
3 years ago with the result that the NZAA has been represented at World
Championship level each year since then. The Sunday Afternoon Concert again proved to be a huge success. Pavel Mangassaryan thrilled the audience with his accordion mastery, demonstrating why he was judged the winner of the 2003 Coupe Mondiale International Piano Accordion Competition. The concert also showcased selected NZ and South Pacific class winners. It also provided us the opportunity to publicly thank our 3 members who competed at the 2003 Coupe Mondiale, Mylie and Hilary Thwaites and Shanxi Upsdell, who were presented with special awards acknowledging the hours of practice, their single-minded dedication, along with the personal expenses of both time and money to compete at this level. We simply could not pass up a perfect opportunity to publicly present to Marie Jones the CIA Honoured Friend of the Accordion Award and to Christine Adams the CIA Merit Award. Another memorable competition weekend concluded with a Farewell Dinner at Fairway Lodge in Glenfield where trophies were presented to the South Pacific Championship Class winners - Campbell Thwaites for the 12 and Under section, Julie Ding, 15 ye! ars and under and Ann-Elise Koerntjes of Australia for the premiere class. Special awards were also presented to this year's recipients: |
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| While reviewing our Championship weekend I think it is important
to mention the NZAA’s commitment to its sponsorship of travel to
New Zealand for the Coupe Mondiale International Piano Accordion Competition
winner. This sponsorship is to be reviewed shortly so I would like to
make a personal comment in my report regarding this. I’m certain
you will all agree that the huge impact created by the performances of
Alexander Pouleuve last year and Pavel Mangasaryan this year have graphically
illustrated the benefits that could accrue to our organisation if we seize
the opportunity to capitalise on future visits by such virtuoso performers.
Not only are they such wonderful and inspirational role models for our
own students, but the potential to attract new interested audiences is
immense. This was highlighted to me this year by the caretaker at EGGS who had probably never before heard an accordion played seriously and certainly not to the standard of Pavel Mangassaryan, being totally absorbed by the whole spectacle, to the point that he remained behind after watching the concert to seek out Pavel to obtain his autograph. By his own admission the whole weekend event absolutely captivated him. I believe we are missing a huge opportunity by not adequately publicising the event generally and in particular our Sunday afternoon Concert, featuring a world-class musician. With dwindling attendance at our Competitions, which equates to loss of door takings and operational losses, we do have a real opportunity to compensate by attracting larger audiences by adopting a more positive and proactive approach to marketing and advertising the event. This does not require a large budget because much of it can be accomplished with little or no dollar spend. What it does require is a person or persons who are committed to the task, who are prepared to make the time and effort to explore all of the opportunities available. I will address this subject within our committee as part of our Championship debrief. I am committed to achieving a satisfactory resolution to this deficiency. I have to say that this past Competition weekend has to be described as the best organised ever, but there must always be room for improvement. Already suggestions and comments relating to the event have been requested and received so that a full and objective debrief and analysis of the weekend can be achieved. My special thanks to all those who assisted during the Competition weekend. It really is a huge undertaking to stage an event like this, requiring the input of so many dedicated people who give so freely of their valuable time, year after year. |
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Finally, I would like to thank my hardworking committee for their continuing support and commitment during the past year. Being a committee member can sometimes feel like a thankless task, and those committee meetings always seem to conflict with other engagements. Anyway, thank you for the effort you always put in, especially during those hectic weeks leading up to the Championships and during the event itself. |
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| John Statham President |
